Last Updated on October 25, 2017 by CCAR Staff
The driver of a tour bus that slammed into a stopped big-rig on the 10 Freeway near Palm Springs in October 2016, resulting in the deaths of 12 passengers, was most responsible for the crash, the California Highway Patrol said Wednesday, Oct. 25.
CHP Officer Michael Radford would not say Wednesday why the Alhambra-based bus driver, Teodulo Elias Vides, who died in the crash, was judged most at fault. Radford referred questions to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, which also declined to comment.
In announcing charges Oct. 19 against the driver of the big-rig, Bruce Guilford, the CHP said Guilford was “not the party determined to be most at fault.” But the news release did not elaborate on that statement.
What is known is that the bus, carrying 42 passengers from the Red Earth casino in Thermal, was traveling west at 76 mph in a 70-mph zone at the time of the 5:15 a.m. crash, the CHP has said.
Additionally, National Transportation Safety Board investigators in their preliminary report released in January found that the treads on four of the eight tires were too thin under standards set by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, an international nonprofit organization composed of government and commercial representatives aimed at improving commercial motor vehicle safety.
The NTSB will meet in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Oct. 31, to determine the probable cause of the crash. The meeting will be streamed live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time at ntsb.capitolconnection.org.
The California Highway Patrol isn’t the only one faulting the bus driver; Vides’ estate has been sued by some of the surviving passengers and family members of those who died. The estate is listed in Riverside County Superior Court records as not being represented by an attorney.
In the CHP declaration written to obtain an arrest warrant, the agency says that Guilford had fallen asleep with the rig’s parking brakes set while traffic was stopped to allow Southern California Edison workers to pull wires across the highway.
Guilford was charged on Oct. 18 with 13 counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, 12 counts of felony reckless driving causing injury and 17 misdemeanor counts of reckless driving causing injury. He was arrested the next day in Georgia. He had not been booked in Riverside County as of Wednesday afternoon, according to online jail records.
A District Attorney’s Office investigation showed that Guilford violated various federal regulations related to drive-time limits and sleep breaks before the crash, and that he had falsified log records.
William “Bill” Dawson, an independent traffic accident reconstructionist with California Traffic Specialists in Temecula, placed blame on both drivers, saying “neither party was squeaky clean.”
He also said the CHP could conceivably have been at fault if officers didn’t make sure that all drivers were properly seated and all traffic was ready to move after the wire work was completed.
